Yorkshire Red Kites
Digi-scoping as an aid to identification of red kites.

Digi-scoping involves taking photographs through a birdwatching scope using a digital camera – sometimes using an elaborate mount to connect the two items together.

Given the right conditions, some stunning, highly-magnified, images can be obtained. It can also be a useful aid to the identification of tagged birds, as has happened several times in 2007. The Yorkshire bird at Walberswick, referred to above, was identified by this means, as was White/Orange 31 – a Midlands bird which paid us a visit early in the year.

However, the most useful instance occurred in North Yorkshire at a site where kites had bred in 2006 and did so again this year. The male of the pair had been identified as Orange/Yellow 1, a bird which had not been seen at Harewood since it was tagged at its nest there in June 2004. A distant view of the bird had confirmed the yellow tag which showed '1' and appeared to have an orange band across the bottom.

A bird with a yellow tag had been reported by the gamekeeper in early 2005 and, putting two and two together, it appeared that it was, indeed, Orange/Yellow 1. There was a puzzle however. One sighting of what was believed to be this bird showed it to have a radio-transmitter on its back – which Orange/Yellow 1 did not have.

The mystery was resolved in a most unexpected manner. There's a nature reserve not far from the breeding site and in early 2007 a rarity was sighted there - the first-ever British record of a Pacific Diver. One of the people who came to see it also had good views of the Red Kite in question. He took some very clear photographs of the bird in flight. This showed it to be Pink/Yellow 1 from Northern Kites.

By a remarkable coincidence, this bird had actually had its wing-tags and radio-transmitter fitted at its release site in Tyne and Wear by none other than the Yorkshire Red Kite Project Officer, whilst training the Northern Kites Project Manager!

There are no prizes for guessing who it was who wrongly identified it initially here in Yorkshire. Clearly a case of 'egg on face', but he's not letting it worry him.

The icing on the cake, at least from the Yorkshire viewpoint, is that we also have Pink/Yellow 2 settled and breeding in Yorkshire – this bird having had its tags and transmitter fitted in Tyne and Wear next in the sequence after Pink/Yellow 1.